This invention relates to beverage carriers in general and in particular to a novel one-piece returnable wrap-around beverage carrier having an internal handle formed in a longitudinal partition panel and novel bottle separator tabs formed in the bottom panel.
It is known in the prior art of designing beverage carriers to provide a basket-style carrier having a central longitudinal panel of single or double thicknesses. It is also known in the art to fasten longitudinal partition panels to the bottom structure of the carrier proper in order to firmly fix the longitudinal handle panel to the carrier thereby allowing the weight of the bottles in the carrier to be carried through the handle structure. Such a construction is shown in the U.S. Pat. No. 2,525,686, issued to M. H. Kowal on Oct. 10, 1950.
It is known in the prior art of wrap-around beverage carriers to provide bottle separation tabs hinged from the bottom panel of the carrier as shown in the U.S. Pat. No. 4,186,867, issued to Prentice J. Wood on Feb. 5, 1980. The tabs taught by the Wood patent are generally L-shaped and have a lower edge (P) designed to be disposed below the lowermost part of the bottle label.
It is desirous in the construction of a wrap-around beverage carrier of the type encompassing the applicant's invention to provide a one-piece returnable wrap-around carrier which does not require separate partitions, either longitudinal or transverse, in the carrier. The use of separate partitions requires additional machinery in the erecting stage of the carrier in order to insert and glue the partition or partitions to the interior of the structure. It is also desirous of provising other means of bottle separation through the use of a novel design of bottom separator tabs.